Dreams
by Saoto
Summary: Jean has recurring dreams about a post-apocalyptic world full of titans and the people he knows from day to day life - and suddenly this new boy from school appears in his dreams as well… (Marco's POV)


I met him when I was 16. My family had to move due to my father's job, so I had to change schools as well. He was in my class, and the first one to greet me. Yet, after that, we rarely talked or even looked at each other. He was just this cheerful boy with the undercut, always boasting and joking around, and I was just this quiet, tall, freckled boy who was always sitting there in silence if he didn't need to talk.

A few weeks after my transfer, things began to change. He, who never even looked at me if he didn't have to, was suddenly giving me weird and worried glances, staring at me when he thought I didn't notice. His gaze confused me; I didn't know what I did for him to stare at me like this. However, I didn't mention it, and I didn't talk to him. For me, things just stayed the same.

It was maybe few months after his sudden change in behaviour that both of us and a few other people were assigned for a group project. It was a presentation which was supposed to be about historical cities and the importance of town walls and their defence. I had opened up to most of my classmates in the past weeks, and in the process figured out it was easy to get along with all of them. To him I didn't talk often, not sure what to say or how to address the boy who always stared at me with the same piercing glare. During the preparations, our group partners decided on their own that I should be the group leader, doing most of the planning and presenting, while they were the ones doing most of the research and writing. I was fine with that, for I had never feared taking over leading positions, so I accepted their proposal with a bright smile. He, however, cast me another one of his glances that I could not understand, and it worried me. I thought he might be jealous, maybe wanting the leader position himself, so while the rest of our group was preparing to leave, I finally managed to talk to him.

"Jean," I said with the nicest smile I could manage, "You know, if you want to, you can be the group leader as well. I don't necessarily need that position if you want it."

He stared at me and raised an eyebrow, probably not making the connection between my words and what had happened before. Then all of a sudden his eyes widened, and he slowly shook his head.

"No, that's not it." As he turned away from me he mumbled, "I think you'll be a great leader anyway."

"Thank you," I replied slowly, slightly confused, for his words had a different tone to it than I had expected. "But I think you'd be a great leader as well," I quickly added with a smile.

He froze in his movements and looked up at me again, his eyes wide in shock. I didn't know why that was back then, but I actually had said something that surprised him greatly in more ways than one. Not knowing what I had done wrong, I quickly tried to change the topic, but nothing but small talk came out of this conversation, and we both walked home without any apparent change in our relationship.

Surprisingly, after this we started to talk to each other more frequently. It was only small talk, or him ranting about teachers or our classmate Eren, and me telling him about my former school, but nothing _more_, nothing really personal. We weren't friends or anything – not even close.

Yet every time we talked, I began to wonder why this confident and noisy boy – always boasting around and starting fights with other boys – acted so differently towards me. While he was with me, he was subdued, and though he rarely smiled sincerely he gave me the sweetest smiles I had ever seen. I didn't know how this had happened, since I didn't know if this was his true self, but I started to feel drawn to this boy who acted so weird in my presence. I wanted to know the reason behind it, and I wanted to be his friend. I wanted to know more about the meaning behind the weird glances he shot me, which could've meant anything between uncertainty and abhorrence.

After the group project was done, we began to sit together in classes more often. He started to tell me about his family, and why he studied at this school. He told me about his goals, and how much he hated Eren and his adoptive sister's weird adoration for him. He told me about himself, and I told him as much as he wanted about myself. He opened up to me, started to joke with me and treat me more like a friend, yet still not like his other classmates.

Time went by, and our relationship changed from classmates to friends, and from friends to close friends. I didn't even realise when it happened, but somehow he became my closest friend in a short time, and I think he started to feel the same way about our friendship. That's when he finally got the courage to tell me about his dreams. Not just any dreams, that is, nor dreams for his future – no, it was another kind of dream, haunting him every single night, building up a whole story with all the people he knew and was about to meet.

At first, I thought he had a vivid imagination, but things began to change the more he told me about it. In those dreams he had, he lived in a dystopian world where humans were nearly extinct. They had to fight against gigantic human-like creatures to survive, and humanity didn't have much hope left. He was one of the people training to become a soldier, and so were most of our classmates. Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Christa, Ymir, Connie, Sasha… they all wanted to become soldiers for different reasons, and their relations to each other were almost exactly like in reality. Like I said, at first I just smiled at the vivid imagination he seemingly had, but then he came to the part that included me.

For a few weeks after we met for the first time, I hadn't appeared in his dreams at all; but then, suddenly, I was there, and this was the time he started to stare at me. The reason for his glances, however, had not been the simple fact that another one of those persons he met had appeared in his dreams – no, he was already used to this – but the fact that this freckled boy he had never really talked to before, turned out to become a good friend to him inside of his dreams, while they didn't talk to each other most of the time in reality.

"You became something like my best friend, I guess," he told me with a shrug, and he forced a smile while he looked at me, "It felt weird that a total stranger suddenly was the BFF of my dream-self, you know. And also, I started to worry…", he continued, for a lot of the people he met in reality suddenly died in his dreams, and it always became hard to look them in the eyes after that when he met them again in school – if he met them at all, for some of them suddenly changed schools or just did not appear in front of him ever again.

"I'm alive now, aren't I?" I tried to calm him down, for he suddenly started to bite his lip in unease. He just nodded, not looking at me.

"Thank God you are," he mumbled, "Even though we just fought another bunch of those titans. You're still alive…" He raised his head and stared at me. "But do you have _any_ idea how much you surprised me when you suddenly said the exact same words your dream-self said to me?!"

I raised my brows and opened my mouth to say something, having no clue what he was even talking about, when he continued: "Back then, when we were working on that group project. The thing about me being a great leader as well. That stuff." He looked away again, his cheeks actually turning a bit red, "We had exactly the same conversation in my dreams, and that scared the heck outta me…"

I couldn't help but laugh. Jean could be so adorable sometimes, being flustered over something so little when he didn't even show such emotions to most people in general.

And I didn't even ask myself when I actually had started to see him as "adorable" or "sweet", or anything transgressing the border of simple friendship between two guys.

With us being something like best friends now, things stayed pretty much the same for many weeks to come. First thing in the morning he would tell me about last night's dreams, and how we had slain many more of those titans alongside others like Sasha and Connie, or who had died or barely survived. The most interesting part was probably when he told me one day that Eren – the boy he seemingly hated most in class – had suddenly died and his adoptive sister had gone crazy, and then weeks later it turned out that he wasn't, in fact, dead but something like a titan shifter (which seemed pretty hilarious to me), turning into one of those giants himself and killing them one by one. And a few days later Jean told me that Eren had sealed the broken gate in the town's wall to prevent more titans from entering the city.

And the next day, Jean didn't come to school.

He didn't text me or contact me like he usually did after we'd become friends. So I got worried and took the bus to his home as soon as school was over.

I hadn't been to his house ever before, for some reason. He just visited me when we hung out and did not want to hit the town, so I didn't quite know what his house looked like, to be honest. It took some time for me to finally find the house on whose doorbell was written "Kirschtein". I rang the bell nervously. I really hoped Jean was even at home, or that he was at least healthy enough to have visitors. Maybe he had his reasons for not bothering to contact me.

But to my surprise, it was Jean himself who opened the door. He didn't look sick or hurt. Only… his face was odd. He had huge rings under red eyes, and his gaze told me that something had happened in his dreams which had hurt him more than I ever thought it would. His dreams were serious business for him, for they had haunted him since he was young. I hadn't truly understood the meaning of that until this very moment.

Jean looked at me as if he'd seen a ghost (which, ironically enough, was quite fitting in this case) and hesitated for a moment before he gestured for me to enter the house. "My parents are at work," he mumbled and walked to his room, not looking back at me, and not mentioning the fact that he hadn't showed up at school without telling anyone.

"Are you ill, Jean? Or did you just skip school?" I asked, trying to break the awkward silence that embraced us as soon as we entered his room. Jean just shrugged and sat down on his bed, still not looking at me.

I sighed and sat down beside him, which made him flinch a bit, staring at his closet which suddenly seemed way more interesting than me. "Jean, seriously… what in the world is wrong with you all of a sudden? Yesterday you were joking around, and now… It's the dreams, isn't it?"

He let out a heavy sigh and slowly nodded. "Yeah…" he mumbled, looking at me out of the corner of his eyes. I felt my heart skip a beat, because just from this short glance I could feel more hurt and worry than I'd ever seen in his eyes.

"And what is it?" I tried to best to comfort my friend with the softest smile I could manage, and put my hand on his shoulder to coax him into telling me about last night's dream. He flinched again and sighed even louder, finally giving in.

"You died," he simply told me, "You died. Just like that."

I opened my mouth to say something, but did not exactly know how to reply to that. I could do nothing but stare at him with my mouth open, my hand still resting on his shoulder and subconsciously gripping it tighter.

"Eren had sealed the gate, and everyone was celebrating that first victory. And then… I found your corpse. You just lay there and were fucking _dead_. Like, half of you was bitten off by a friggin' titan. It was _horrible_." He hid his face from me with his right hand, his left hand gripping the sheets he sat on. And I still didn't know what to say. I wanted to tell him, "Shh, it's just a dream, nothing special", but I finally understood the importance of those dreams in Jean's life. That fact silenced me, and I couldn't help but stare at his hand hiding his emotions from me.

"It hurt," he suddenly continued, lowering his hand and finally facing me. His eyes were still red, and I realised he had been crying for hours at least, and the darkness underneath his eyes told me everything about the horrid night he'd had. "Seeing someone so important to you dead and destroyed like this, without even knowing how he died… that fucking hurts!"

Without realising it I had turned my face towards him as well, so that we were staring into each other's eyes, far too close to each other for male "friends" to be.

"I… I guess it is," I stuttered, finally finding myself able to speak again, "It would be horrible to dream about your death as well, I'm sure."

He smirked ruefully, finding my helpless answer quite funny, given the tense situation. "Just… promise me to be careful, okay? I know I'm exaggerating, but if you see people dying in your dreams every goddamn night, you can't help but be worried ya know," he whispered far too close to my ear. "Just be careful."

"Okay," was all I could say, before I felt his head resting on my left shoulder. I stiffened, but didn't dare to look away. He had his eyes closed and sighed quietly, eventually gripping my arm.

"I'm tired…" he mumbled, letting himself fall back on his bed. "I think I'll finally be able to get some sleep, geez… Thank you," he added while opening his eyes to look at me, "for listening to my weird babbling about my dreams. It means a lot to me that you don't think I'm crazy because of this. My parents do, actually, so I told them the dreams stopped years ago, you know…"

I stared back at him in surprise. I knew he hadn't told any of his classmates or other friends about this, but not even his parents? "They thought there's something wrong with me," he continued, "because I had told them about my dreams since I can remember. They even made me go to a psychiatrist." He laughed awkwardly before continuing, "So one day I simply stopped telling _anyone_ about this."

He had his eyes closed for the last few sentences, but they were half open now, staring at me in a way different from before. His hand was still touching my arm while he was lying there. "Yeah, and then there you were, my dream-self's best friend, cheesy as it sounds – and we actually became friends in real life. So I thought you might be the one person to actually understand. And you do, you don't think I'm crazy... Do you?!"

I laughed out loud at his sudden loss of self-confidence, and reassuringly shook my head when he gave me a look of confusion. "Of course I don't! I'm not a pretentious asshole, acting like I care and laughing at you behind your back, don't worry!" I suppressed my giggles and looked down at his face that was still filled with confusion. "No, seriously. I believe you when you say that this is a burden… or something like that. I really don't want to imagine seeing you die in my dreams. Or reality. I just don't want to."

Jean rewarded me with a rare soft smile, gripping my arm tighter and closing his eyes again. His hand wandered down my arm and finally rested lightly on my hand. Out of reflex, I turned and put my other hand on top of his, giving his hand a light squeeze. "It's fine," I wanted to tell him, but I knew the situation was awkward enough for two men sitting or lying on the same bed, pretty much holding hands, so I kept those words to myself. I saw his lips curl into another smile, breathing softly.

"I'll try to get some rest now," he said quietly, and I instantly took my right hand away from his. Before I could remove my other hand, however, he tugged on my arm and literally pulled me down beside him on his bed.

"I know this is awkward, but could you do me a favour nonetheless?" he whispered, and I could feel my face heating up like crazy.

"Sure," I answered, and he turned his face towards me, keeping his eyes half open.

"Then stay here, at least for a while. Until I'm asleep. Just don't leave right now."

My face was definitely red by then, but Jean couldn't see it, for his eyes were already closed again, and his breath was quiet and even. He had fallen asleep the moment he'd finished his sentence, and I couldn't do anything but lie there and stare at his sleeping face.

That was the moment I finally asked myself: "When did I start to think so differently about him?" I didn't quiet feel like a normal or even best friend towards him, lying there in his very own bed, while he was holding my arm and sleeping calmly. I studied his face, and realised that I didn't find one part of it that did not make my heart beat faster. He wasn't especially good-looking, or rich, or talented, but in my eyes he was absolutely perfect.

Really, when was it that I had started to think like this about him?

"Marco…" As if to confuse me further, he mumbled my name in his sleep, holding onto my arm even tighter and drawing my hand up to his face. "Marco… Marco…"

And with him whispering my name, I fell asleep beside him as well, reaching out for him half asleep and snuggling up against him. The afternoon we had fallen asleep in the same bed changed everything for us.

It was only a few hours later that I woke up to the sound of Jean talking loudly to a woman. I raised my head and realised I was still lying in Jean's bed, while he was standing in front of his room with the door only half closed, arguing with a woman that was probably his mother.

"He came over to check on me since _you_ weren't there, and just happened to fall asleep, so what of it?!" he shouted at her, while his mother grimaced.

"Of course, since when is it _normal_ for boys your age to _just fall asleep_ and _cuddle_ in the same bed? Jean, what the hell?!"

I was still sleepy and couldn't quite understand the meaning of the conversation at this very moment, so I slowly tried to get up and continued to stare at the people outside of the room. Jean had his back turned towards me, and his mother didn't even look my way, just glaring at her son angrily.

"I really hope this is just a phase of yours, son, or else…"

"Or else _what_? I told you, nothing happened there. You just have way too much imagination, mum! Geez!" He hit his fist against the door, making it swing completely open. His mother raised her head and suddenly looked at me, not really surprised that the mysterious boy in her son's bed was awake after all this shouting. "But even _if_ something had happened… that's none of your business! Maybe I _do_ like him, so what?!"

I choked on my own breath, starting to cough all of a sudden. Jean spun around in shock and saw me sitting there on his bed, coughing manically. "You okay?" he asked shocked, dashing up to my side and tapping at my back to help me catch my breath again, "Hey, Marco! Is everything al-"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. I just think I…" – another loud cough – "…should be going, I guess."

Jean's mother nodded, but he frantically shook his head, walked back to the door and closed it in his mother's shocked face.

"No, you're staying. You're not leaving because of my stupid mother's misunderstanding of things. Just because she walked in on us sleeping in each other's… arms…" Jean stopped in his tracks, probably finally understanding what he had just said, and what had just happened. "Oh," was all he could add to this, before his cheeks turned bright red, "Oh."

Now _that_ was awkward. I really did not want to be the one to break the silence, but I knew I had to.

"Umm, Jean, about that…"

He had walked over to the window, staring out at the sky that was getting darker with every minute. "About what?" he asked, his voice a bit shaky. I hesitated, for I was not used to such a situation. Especially not with Jean. It would've been one thing if this had been with a girl, but it was another thing if it was with your supposedly best friend for whom you suddenly started to feel differently.

"About… no, never mind." I tried to back out of the situation. I didn't think I could continue this conversation. I seriously wasn't made for this.

"It's about what I just said, right? You heard that."

"Well… maybe. But don't worry, I understand that you just got angry at your mum and wanted to provoke he-"

Jean interrupted me with a very loud sigh. "Don't assume before I explain, okay?!" he growled, obviously still irritated from the discussion before. I had dealt with an angry Jean before, but this time there was no one around whom he wanted to attack from which I had to hold him back. This time it was probably me who was about to be attacked, if I didn't pull the right strings with this angry Jean.

"Okay then," I said calmly, "then explain, please."

Jean probably did not expect this, for he looked at me confused, as if he wanted to say: "Explain what? Oh, right, I just said so myself." And he walked over to me, sitting down beside me once again.

"When my mother got so angry about what she saw, it just came to me that – maybe – I did not quite dislike sleeping beside you. I felt actually quite comfortable there… Uh, but don't get me wrong. I'm not gay or anything!"

I let out a soft laughter. "Okay, okay, don't worry. I'm not judging you. Anyway, I understand what you mean. It can be comforting to sleep close to a good friend once in a while after a nightmare."

"No, no, you don't understa-", he began and shook his head, "No, I mean. Maybe as a friend, but… Now I… urgh, whatever." He turned his face towards mine in an instant and grabbed my shoulders, pushing me close to him and hugged me in an uncomfortable position. "Look, I'm not sure if I really see you as just a friend, it feels way too nice to be close to you like this. But maybe that's just me. Maybe it's really just a phase. I don't know. And honestly, I don't care."

He let go of me and kept staring at me, like he was waiting for an answer to an unasked question.

"I… don't know what to say to that," I replied truthfully. "I mean, I do like you a lot, and I hold you closer than any other friend, but… that was just pretty much saying nothing in particular. I don't know how to respond to that."

Jean sighed again, lowering his head so that his forehead rested against my upper body. I'm sure he could feel my heartbeat quickening, for he suddenly smiled and mumbled, "I guess that's all I needed to know. Your heart is telling me enough." He raised his head again, so that his face was right in front of mine. "What I'm trying to say is that, right now, I like you, Marco, no matter if you are a boy or not. I like you. And if you don't like me, then fine, I can live with that. If you can't, that's another story, but… whatever."

I let out a nervous laugh. "So, you're trying to say… what exactly?" I still couldn't quite grasp the situation. Or maybe I did, and just wanted to hear it from him directly.

"Geez, Marco!" Jean rolled his eyes, grinning at me. "I'm trying to say that I'd like to be more than friends with you, if that's fine for you, mister freckles!" He stopped there for a moment, staring at my cheeks. "Wow, you really _do_ have a lot of them, don't you. I never realised that before."

Even if it didn't fit the situation, I burst out laughing. Way to ruin the mood, Jean. "It's fine by me, to come back to your former statement, yes," I said as I tried to catch my breath again, "It's more than just fine. But what about your mothe-"

"She'll just have to deal with that, Jesus Christ!" Jean added with feigned annoyance and tackled me with so much force that he almost threw me back on his bed again. Almost. Which was probably for the best, because the moment he let go of me and tried to close the space between his face and mine, the door opened and his mother entered with an apology on her lips, but stopped right in her tracks when she saw us like this, and was about to yell again…

That was many years ago. We were two young boys back then, one 15 and the other 16 years old. But our friendship that had turned into love had been genuine, and it stayed this way. Now I'm 28, and working as an editor at a small publishing company. Jean himself is 27, and works as a police officer, maybe to protect the people he could not save in his nightmares. He still has those dreams once in a while, though they were less frequent since we started dating. Every now and then he wakes me up in the middle of the night after having a nightmare and tells me about what happened, about the walls being destroyed and friends and colleagues being eaten by the titans. And every time, like some kind of ritual, I hold him in my arms and tell him that everything is fine. He'll fall asleep again, mumbling my name in his sleep, sending shivers down my spine. "I love you," I'll whisper in his ear, and snuggle up against him like I did the first time we fell asleep beside each other.

One day, he keeps on telling me, I should take the story he dreamed about so many nights and turn it into a book. He doesn't know if someone would even be interested in reading it, and I don't know if I want to let myself and the people I know die in a story I have to write down… but I'm taking notes nonetheless. Maybe it would help him to read those dreams in a book. Maybe then he could start to see it as nothing but a fictional story, full of detail, and cruelty of life, but also friendship and love. Maybe, someday. But for now I'll just hold him in my arms when he needs me to, and listen to his stories, and his rants about Eren, who apparently became his colleague even in the police force. And I am at his side, until the day I die.

Hopefully, that won't be as soon as in his dreams.

No, I'm sure it will not. It will not.


End file.
